


Creation

by seherrons



Series: We Are Curious Machines (Cyberhusbands) [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Android Jarvis (Iron Man movies), Canon Divergence - Iron Man, Cyberhusbands, Language, M/M, Minor Violence, One Shot, Protective Jarvis (Iron Man movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-14 00:41:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7145102
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seherrons/pseuds/seherrons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“Did it not go well, sir?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“I dunno,” Tony muttered. “He didn’t say.” And it was precisely that which was worrying him. What Obadiah hadn’t said. “You ever get that feeling sometimes where you think people are keeping stuff from you?”</em>
</p><p>When Tony Stark's reputation is left hanging in the public eye following his controversial press conference after Afghanistan, he and Jarvis take countermeasures to ensure that the safety of humanity the planet over is their primary focus. To do so, Jarvis has an idea. And Tony is only far too eager to comply. </p><p>Unfortunately, he's not the only one with ideas... and when Obadiah Stane gives Tony cause for concern, it's only with the help of Jarvis's newfound creation that he manages to stay alive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Creation

**Author's Note:**

> I've been craving Cyberhusbands lately so I thought "what the hell" and went out to write one myself. 
> 
> Takes place during the first Iron Man movie, with a LOT of divergence from the original plot. I've also taken creative liberty to change things around to suit my tastes, which is why the Mark 41 has already been made during this timeline instead of in Iron Man 3.
> 
> I love the Mark 41. What can I say ;) 
> 
> This might also be the start of a Cyberhusbands series from me... who knows. I hope you enjoy! :)

Tony Stark loved to tinker.

It was what he was good at, what he knew. Sometimes it was arguably _all_ he knew, despite the money, despite the eccentricity and the parties and the endless flood of press conferences concerning Stark Industries’ ever-growing social and economical wealth. Despite all the marks he made on this world, this legacy of his handed down from his father.

And sometimes he loved to hate it.

“Tony, are you even listening to me?!”

The echoing clank of metal on the littered work table was all the response Pepper was given.

“Do you mind not turning off my music?” Tony grunted, sounding too distracted to be annoyed at the complete cut-off in AC/DC blaring through the surround sound system as he picked up the welding torch he’d dropped. Fingers slick with grease and stained black from oil, he was just about to lower his visor in preparation of heating the scattered wiring before him again when Pepper interrupted once more.

“Tony, this is important,” she urged, not even bothering to mask the exasperation in her voice, exasperation perhaps laced with a tinge of urgency as she gazed at the man hunched over his desk. As soon as the sparks flew up she threw her hands in the air, her eyes rolling as a heaving sigh escaped her. “Tony!”

“DUM-E, go clean up that mess you made in the corner – you know what one, don’t look at me like that. Change the music, too. Somethin’ classy. Low-key.” He clicked his fingers, DUM-E chirping wistfully at its admonishment. Tony ignored it, just as he continued to ignore Pepper – not even flinching to show he acknowledged the warning touch of her hand on his shoulder.

“Jarvis, talk to me. How’s the scan looking?” He lifted his head, the transparent glow of the holographic screens opening before his very eyes dancing a multitude of lights across his retinas.

 _“It’s too early to determine the exact rate of efficiency as of yet, but currently the readings indicate it to be within the fifty eighth percentile, sir.”_ Tony hummed in response, the distinct sharpness of his AI’s voice drifting through the workshop speakers, the gentle British brogue a welcoming hush compared to the thrum of heavy drums and guitars that had echoed through the house some few moments ago.

Pepper’s eyes narrowed as she turned her head, watching Tony sitting before the display highlighting the live feed of Jarvis’s scans of yet another suit that Tony was constructing. It was all he’d been doing since his return from Afghanistan. Her hand tightened on his shoulder. That suit was the reason she’d come down here. She cleared her throat.       

“Tony—”

“Fifty eight percent isn’t that bad, keep me posted. Any complications with mobility when we eventually get this thing on the road?”

“Tony!”

_“None that I can determine, sir.”_

“Good, good.” Tony smiled, his smile only widening further when the slow beat of saxophones faded in from the speakers soon after. He clicked his fingers in time with the music, minimising the hologram with a careless flick of his hand.

 _Ambient, nice, calm. Exactly what I need right now_ , he thought, scratching the back of his neck with an oily hand and seemingly not caring for the trail of grime he left in ihis wake across his tanned skin when he picked up the wires he’d been welding. _Fifty eight percent mobility isn’t gonna be enough though – I’ll see about maybe expanding that arc reactor technology… might give it a bit of a kick—_

“—Risky move but I’ll take it,” he muttered, continuing his thought aloud to himself.

_“TONY!”_

He jumped, finally startled out of his stupor by Pepper’s forceful pull on the back of his chair, turning him around to face her fully. The cold narrowing of her eyes brooked no room for argument, nor did it give Tony a chance to ignore her as he had already done so. He blinked, rigid in his seat as he glanced up at the woman before him who, with a clipboard in hand which she angrily thrust towards his chest, for all intents and purposes looked like she was in that moment capable of murder.

“… Stop the music,” he gulped, voice quiet. No sooner had the workshop dissolved into silence once more had Pepper moved in for the kill.

“What are you _doing_?!” She hissed, waving her hand to the folder – of which Tony quickly glanced down to eye the cover. It was blank.

“… What’s this?” He asked cautiously, visibly wincing as he raised his head.

“ _That_ , Tony, is your company.” Pepper’s low voice issued a shiver through Tony’s spine, and the brunet shuddered against the unwelcome images that played in the forefront of his mind of all the ways that this woman could string him up, quarter him, castrate him and then leave him for dead if she so wished. He hastily leafed through the pages, quickly scanning each heading, each image of reports more so as a means of escaping her wrath than actually wanting to find out what was written within.

“Looks fine—”

“Tony, everything is far from fine right now!” Pepper threw her hands up again, sighing as she gripped her head and took a step back. Tony exhaled slowly. “The press is going _crazy_ – you… you get back from Afghanistan and you _don’t_ seek medical attention right away and instead you go and make that—that press conference where you say that you’re going to suddenly _stop_ your company’s main production lines? Tony, you’re running everything into the ground here! Obadiah is livid, the _workers_ are livid… do you realise how many jobs are going to be lost here?! Not to mention the effect on the stocks and the implications this has for national security… I…”

She trailed off, taking a deep breath and pulling her hands away before glancing blearily down at the man shrinking into his chair in front of her, Tony conveniently hiding his face behind the pages of the folder he’d raised to shield himself with.

“Pepper, we’ve had this conversation before—” He began, his voice oddly level, retaining some modicum of calm despite his posture saying otherwise. He was interrupted again before he could finish off.

“Yes we have Tony. And I don’t see how anything you’re doing here is an improvement over our last conversation,” Pepper reminded him. She’d begun to pace in front of him now, keeping her distance and clenching her hands in her hair, twisting the red locks around her fingers whilst biting her lip as she struggled to find the words that would fully articulate what she was trying to say, trying to get through to the egotistic billionaire sitting there like he had no care in the world. “For starters, you’re still building _them_.” And she waved a hand, indicating the far wall.

The Iron Man suit stood calmly locked away in its glass barrier, illuminated by downlights from above – the shadows dancing over the crimson-gold plating casting an ominous darkness upon the armour’s metallic surface. Tony lowered the folder, now having lost complete interest in its contents. He straightened in his seat, giving the woman his complete undivided attention, his hazel eyes sharpening as he locked his gaze firmly upon hers.  

“I shut down the company because people were _dying_ , Pepper,” he intoned lowly, not once blinking as he continued to calmly stare at her. Pepper crossed her arms over her chest, shuffling her feet slightly, if not a little uncomfortably. “We only need one foolproof way to save the planet and you’re looking at it. No one gets hurt except the people who deserve it and those bad guys go down. Boom, just like that.”

Pepper’s mouth dropped open, and she extended a hand to the suit.

“How is that _foolproof_ , Tony?!” She asked incredulously. “That… that is _still_ a weapon! Let the army do their bit to help the planet. That’s their job! You’re shutting down the manufacturing firm just to sit here and make something that… that only _you_ can control and you’re going to throw yourself in harm’s way just because of this stupid idea—”

“Which was thoroughly researched, tested and protocoled before I started improving the suit to meet the capabilities needed to deem it – by _law_ I might add, and I don’t generally give a crap about what the President and his little bitch-ass friends in government think as you well know – a _safe_ , _stable_ piece of technology that _can_ and _will_ be all this country needs to keep itself out of the firing line for at least another fifty years or more.” Tony had stood up now, throwing the folder onto the workbench and ignoring the jangling clutter of the wires that had been disturbed as he’d done so. He stared her down, his face calm, composed, but the narrowing of his eyes clearly dared Pepper to talk back, to try and convince him otherwise that this was a bad idea.

So he smiled when she groaned and shook her head, rubbing her eyes with her hands.

“Tony… with the way you’re going…” And she lifted her head again, her blue eyes focusing on the faintly glowing reactor strapped to Tony’s chest, its light just barely visible through his shirt, “… you won’t be around for another fifty years.”

Another smile; bitter, forced, pulled at Tony’s lips and he turned his back.

“That will be all, Miss Potts.”

There was a pregnant silence that followed, the tension palpable in that moment as Pepper froze in place.

“Tony, I…”

Tony had picked up one of the loose wires, oil-stained fingers deftly twirling the copper in his hand. He didn’t look back at her. Worrying her bottom lip between her teeth her expression softened, her hands lowering to clutch uselessly at the lace of her shirt.

“I’m sorry…”

He didn’t care. Just like with a lot of things, it would seem. She took a deep breath, exhaling slowly and leaving the man where he stood, the click of her heels against the tiled floor soon fading as she exited into the hallway, taking her leave up the stairs. It wasn’t until the workshop door closed quietly behind her that Tony slumped back down into his seat, lifting a hand to run it through the greasy locks of his hair. He took a deep breath, held it, then loosed it five seconds later. He did it again. Inhale, hold, exhale. Three more times.

It didn’t help.

_“She’s deeply concerned about you, sir.”_

Picking up the cluttered pile of wires Tony bit back a scoff.

“Really? What gave that away, Jarv?” He muttered, not bothering to hide the annoyance in his voice now. He grabbed the welding iron but soon threw it back down on the table. His fingers twitched. He was too distracted. Somewhere in the background the ambient music from earlier resumed playing, DUM-E no doubt deeming it appropriate to do so. Tony grunted in vague acknowledgement. DUM-E was being surprisingly good today.

Overhead a soft, mechanical sigh echoed through the speakers.

_“If I may, sir…”_

“Nope.”

_“I have begun to run tests on the likelihood of expanding the arc reactor technology.”_

Tony paused, glancing up at the nearby monitor. He was impressed – the fact that Jarvis had gone ahead and done that for him before he’d even thought to ask was surprising. He turned back to his work, adjusting the visor he wore and lowering it once again as he resumed welding.

“Well how about that for foresight. Thanks.”

_“You’re most welcome, sir.”_

It was clearly a ruse, something to try and lower his guard down so Jarvis could convince Tony to go and apologise to Pepper. He knew this, but he decided to play along nevertheless – as much as it might begrudge him to admit his AI _did_ have a point. He wasn’t disappointed.

 _“Miss Potts has left the facility,”_ Jarvis announced a short moment later, his voice considerably softer now as Tony sat there, sparks flying. There was another lapse of silence until the AI saw fit to continue. _“Her concerns were not misplaced.”_

“Yeah? And since when did you suddenly become an expert in concerns, Jarvis?” Tony muttered, lifting his visor again and inspecting the heated wires that he’d been so diligently working on before Pepper had yelled at him. He glanced at the nearby monitor out the corner of his eye. Even if he couldn’t see Jarvis, he knew that Jarvis could see him.

 _“Since it was my concern to take an interest in the duties you assigned to me in my programming, sir. Your wellbeing having been one of them. I do believe Miss Potts’ argument falls under that jurisdiction. Your heart rate fluctuated by 0.25 percent.”_   

A dry chuckle left Tony’s lips and he sat back in his chair.

“Sometimes I wonder why I gave you so much room to play around with in your coding in the first place,” he muttered under his breath. “Now I’m getting counselled by my own computer.”

_“I resent that remark, sir. I am not a mere computer.”_

The chuckle left Tony’s lips again, though this time there was a noticeable pull of his mouth upwards – the barest hint of a smile. Jarvis was trying to lighten the mood, the AI’s voice laced with all manner of feigned reproachfulness.

_Well I gotta hand it to him. It’s working._

“What would you have me do then?” He asked, sighing and closing his eyes. He rubbed his brow with the back of his hand. He wasn’t tired – far from it. But he _was_ annoyed. Annoyed and, dare he admit it, left feeling somewhat helpless. He and Jarvis had been working on this design for days. He knew it would work – there was no reason why it _wouldn’t_ work, but at the same time… Pepper’s approval would be another matter entirely. One which he realised would potentially be more of a make or break deal than his capture in Afghanistan. He knew better than anyone that death would be a welcome alternative to the wrath of Pepper Potts.

 _“I am unsure, sir,”_ came Jarvis’s slow reply, the pause that followed causing Tony’s eyes to open again as he glanced back at the screens, keeping them in view as he strode towards the nearby kitchen to prepare himself a mug of black coffee.

“Well that makes two of us,” Tony mused, his hands resting atop the kitchen bench as the smell of coffee beans permeated the air, the coffee machine hissing heartily away before him. “She hates the suit, I get it. But do you know the kind of strain it has on a guy living with being called the ‘Merchant of Death’ every other morning?” He made a face, the scowl pulling at his lips as dark as the liquid he poured into his cup, Tony trailing off momentarily to sip at the steaming hot coffee in his hands. Feeling the welcome rush of caffeine he took another sip and walked back to his seat.

“Iron Man was always the better alternative. No en masse productions, no… no terrorist groups getting their hands on those missiles, no—” He slammed his cup down, his expression darkening. “This is the right thing, Jarvis. I’m finally doing the right thing for once in my life.”

The revelation was enough to cause him to want to laugh again. In fact he almost did.

“I shoulda put some whiskey in here,” he grunted, downing some more coffee.

 _“I do not deny that what we’re doing is the right thing,”_ Jarvis spoke softly, and Tony lifted his head again, his interest piquing at the ‘we’ the AI was careful to word in his sentence.

“Yeah, well, you were the one who suggested this in the first place. It’d be a bit of a dick move if you did deny it,” the man mumbled, indicating the bunch of wires on his desk, dumped next to the titanium-plated boots that had been the better half of this project since he’d started it early that morning. _We need a backup in case this goes wrong_ , Tony had mentioned to Jarvis when he’d woken up and had begun the trek down to the workshop the other day. _Two heads are better than one._

Jarvis had fallen silent for a moment, and in that silence Tony could have sworn he heard the metaphorical gears of Jarvis’s mind working overtime as he thought over his creator’s words.

 _Allow me to suggest a few modifications then, sir,_ he’d answered at length, and Tony was left to silently watch and observe as the blueprints materialised upon the holo-screen before him – ever so meticulous as he was, Jarvis not glancing over a single thing. It was all there, right before him. And it was perfect. Tony didn’t think he’d smiled so much since before his capture. _Outdoing yourself are you, Jarvis?_ He’d mused, saving the design to his desktop monitors for immediate production. All he’d gotten in response was a considerate hum that had pulsed through the speakers around him.

 _Well sir, two heads_ are _better than one._  

Downing another gulp of hot coffee, Tony refocused his attention on the here and now.

_“I sincerely hope that it gives you the peace of mind you so clearly seek, sir.”_

He blinked, glancing once more at the monitor in front of him.

“The Ten Rings were keeping me locked up, my company’s being run into the ground by my own doing and my assistant might kill me in my sleep. When have I ever hoped to get any kind of ‘peace of mind’ through all this, Jarvis?” His words were light-hearted, followed by a low chuckle. But even as he spoke them Tony found that there was some stinging truth in what he’d said. His chuckle lapsed into a sigh, and he placed his empty coffee mug back down on the table. “Pepper’s still gonna be pissed. Obie’s probably gonna call another press conference to try and sort this mess out. And here we are, working away on another suit and hoping that it’s enough to guarantee our security until we die fighting or die trying.”

_“It’s a start, sir. I would not have suggested it in the first place had I thought that it wouldn’t be of use to you. To expand the suit’s capabilities beyond its current level would indeed ensure our security, as you so put it.”_

Tony considered that for a minute. Jarvis had a point.

 _“I am continuing to run tests of my own,”_ the AI continued, Tony listening intently now as the screen before him lit up to project the figure of the suit in question, _“and the current success rate of upload is one hundred percent. There will be no issues. It will be a smooth transition, sir. You have nothing to fear.”_

“Fear?” Tony’s lips split into a wry grin. “You’re getting ahead of yourself, Jarv. I’m not scared.”

The silence that followed seemed to prove him otherwise.

 _“Are you sure, sir?”_ Jarvis’s voice was so quiet that Tony wouldn’t have heard him had he not been listening. Shifting in his seat he glared at the monitor, hoping that the look in his eyes would be enough to scare Jarvis back to being quiet for another five goddamn minutes. It didn’t work. Of course it didn’t. He knew him too well.

 _“Sir… I was not merely acting on my own impulses when I suggested this design,”_ he continued, each word so pronounced, so carefully chosen that Tony would be damned if the AI didn’t end up having a mind of his own after all. _“There is risk, of course there is. But this is the safest possible option left to us considering the state of things. It is a design you had so often revealed to me before. I simply took it upon myself to make it a reality.”_   

“Yeah... I know…” Tony sighed, waving his hand and grunting when the music stopped again. It was starting to annoy him.

 _“It is what you wanted, sir,”_ Jarvis’s reminder echoed overhead, Tony pausing as he took in those words and mulled them over his brain. Resting his chin in the palm of his hand he threw the coffee cup into the bin before redirecting his attention once more to the screens.

“Here’s a question for you Jarv,” he began, “is this what _you_ wanted? You’d be putting yourself in the firing line, after all. Won’t just be me everyone’ll be after if this turns out ok.” He waited patiently, the next silence that followed clearly indicating that Jarvis was working his mechanical brain to the best of his ability to answer that question.

_“I… I am not—”_

“If you try to say you’re not programmed to answer that type of question you’re lying and you know it,” Tony muttered, eyes narrowing as he debated whether or not to tell DUM-E to stop cleaning and fetch him another cup of coffee.

_“Yes.”_

Tony looked at the screen again, his eyes holding the monitor unblinkingly as he let that admission sink in for a moment.

_“Undoubtedly. I do want this, sir.”_

Tony nodded, drumming his fingertips idly against the desk now as he stood up.

“Well alright then.”

He didn’t say anything else for a long while, too distracted with the thoughts surging through his head, the churn of his stomach at the sincerity he’d heard in Jarvis’s voice. This could go either one of two ways – he just hoped it would go for the better.

_There’s only one way to find out._

_“I have completed the tests concerning the arc reactor technology.”_ Tony looked up again.

“And?”

He could almost hear the smile in the AI’s voice.

_“If we try to replicate the technology of that at Stark Industries, fusing it with the enhanced palladium design would ensure complete protection for the model. It will be sturdy enough to withstand most ballistic attacks and carries a molecular structure similar to that of vibranium.”_

Tony was impressed.

“Well how about that,” he breathed, feeling the clenching in his stomach lessen as he stood from his chair, idly reaching down to pick up the folder that Pepper had thrown at him earlier. Clutching the folder in his hands he turned back to the monitor once more, the faintest tug of a smile pulling at his lips. “No regrets then if we get started on this? You can always back out, Jarvis.”

He didn’t know whether the slow exhale that left his lips when the AI replied was one of trepidation or relief.

_“I stand by my desire to be a part of this, sir.”_

Tony chuckled, turning his back in preparation to leave the workshop.

“Jarvis, I could kiss you.”

The answering chuckle filtering through the speakers was impossible to miss.

_“I’m flattered, sir.”_

The lights dimmed as Tony left the workshop, folder tucked neatly away in his arms.

* * *

Bathed in darkness, muscles relaxed from the stream of hot water that had been his shower five minutes prior, Tony had to admit to himself that going to bed at such a reasonable time was perhaps the strangest thing to have happened all day. As it was the holographic clock that illuminated the wall at his command revealed to him that it was nearing midnight.

Sitting back against the headrest, he closed his eyes and allowed a slow sigh to escape him, Tony raising his hand to rub his fingers through the short locks of his hair. His mind was buzzing with ideas, ideas and designs and every word that had transpired between himself, Pepper and Jarvis that evening.

Bringing his hand down he’d almost forgotten about the folder that had laid discarded next to him until his fingers brushed against the papers kept within. Frowning, he turned the lights on with a click of his fingers and picked up the pages, rifling through them for lack of anything better to use as bedside reading at that moment in time. Now that Pepper was gone and he was, more or less, left alone, he found he could concentrate more easily on the words and images before him. Reading now, he let himself take in the reports of lost jobs, concerned workers and interviews made with the media on behalf of Obadiah trying his hardest to keep the company afloat.

“Gotta hand it to ‘im,” Tony muttered under his breath as he scrolled through one of these press talks in particular. He didn’t give Obadiah nearly as much credit as he should have. “Might have to give him a gift basket.”

The thought would have made him chuckle if he hadn’t flicked the page over to read the underside of text before him.

“Wait…”

He squinted, as if hoping that in doing so it might change what it was he was reading. The greyscale image of Obadiah Stane was staring back at him, the man clearly photographed just as he’d been about to leave Stark Industries the previous morning. The title of the article had been what had caught Tony’s attention: _PRESS CONFERENCE CALLED AT STARK INDUSTRIES – OBADIAH STANE TO TALK ABOUT THE COMPANY’S FUTURE IN WEAPONS DEVELOPMENT._

He re-read the sentence two more times, as if hoping that the more he read the more he could make sense of it. Then he checked the time and date of the conference. His brows knotted in a tight line, his lips pursed even more so. The conference would be tomorrow afternoon.

_I wasn’t told about this…_

He placed the folder back down, the frown on his face deepening considerably as Tony lifted his gaze to the shoreline outside his bedroom window, the waves lapping gently against the cliffs under the silver rays of moonlight. Clearing his throat, he raised his voice.

“Jarvis… did I get a notification about this press conference tomorrow?”

It was a few moments until Jarvis replied, no doubt bringing himself out of the standby mode that Tony had told him to settle down in after he’d left the workshop.

 _“I cannot find any records on the matter, no.”_ Jarvis sounded quieter than usual, and Tony would have snorted aloud at the thought of his AI being ‘sleepy’ if he wasn’t so concerned with what was right in front of him. He threw the folder down on the bed, standing from the warmth of the silk sheets and clapping his hands – the lights turning on at his unspoken command and flooding the dark room in calm yellow light. He moved to grab his dress robe next, slipping it over his shoulders and tightening it in place as he prepared to leave.

_“Sir, with all due respect I highly advise against attempting to—”_

“I’m not gonna try to ring him, J. Relax,” Tony interrupted, sounding absentminded as he walked out into the hallway, eyes trained on the stairs as he jogged down them two at a time. As he would so often find himself doing as of late, he was preparing to re-enter his workshop, his fingers itching for something to keep him occupied with. “I’ll hear about it from him after the meeting’s over. Or from the press, whatever comes up first.”

 _“Then may I inquire as to what you’re doing now, sir?”_ Jarvis asked, sounding more or less awake now to Tony’s ears as he clicked his fingers at DUM-E, the robot chirping and glancing up with would-be hope if it had eyes.

“DUM-E, you know what to do.”

Another chirp, and the speakers soon thrummed and pulsed with the blaring guitars and drums of AC/DC. Smiling satisfactorily, Tony glanced up at the holo-screens Jarvis had helpfully switched on for him, and looking at the time he turned to the bar at the far end of the workshop.

“It’s morning somewhere in the world right now,” he mused. “DUM-E, get me a cappuccino while you’re at it. I’m feeling frisky.” Spinning back to face the screens he addressed his AI again, glancing into the nearby monitor. “I’m working, Jarvis.”

He wouldn’t be surprised if the noise that hummed through the nearby speakers at that was in fact an exasperated sigh aimed at his general direction.

_“And just when I’d finally thought you’d taken up the practice of going to bed at a reasonable time.”_

A bark of laughter left Tony’s lips, his eyes crinkling as he grinned and drew up the plans for the new suit.

“You know if I wanted a wife I would have already asked you, Jarv. Stop being so wifey.”

 _“I find that highly unamusing, sir.”_          

“See? Wifey.” Tony sat up, grabbing the nearby tools he had set out on his desk and immediately settled down again to work on the boots that he’d started on the previous morning. The chirping by his side drew his attention back to DUM-E, and he accepted the coffee the robot cautiously passed up to him with a grunted thanks and a nod of the head. Sipping the warm caffeine he placed the cup down again and focused. “Let’s get started on this. The sooner we can get it ready the better – I’m estimating completion at the end of the week and then we can give this baby a test run. You ok with that, J?”

The silence that followed made Tony frown, and he took another sip of coffee before clearing his throat.

“J?”

_“Oh, my apologies sir. I don’t want to come across as being too ‘wifey’.”_

Tony almost choked on his coffee, and the smirk he fought to keep at bay crested upon his lips regardless until he regained control of himself.

“Alright keep the snark at bay for ten minutes, will you? This is serious.”

_“You’re concerned about the press conference.”_

“What, is it so obvious?” Tony grunted, rolling his eyes before rubbing the back of his head and tapping command prompts into the computer nearby. As he waited for the rest of the workshop to wake up, the thrum of electricity humming through sockets and the entirety of the underground space lighting up from the inside out, he cleared his throat again. “Call me paranoid, but I think it’s nice to get things started a little early.”

 _“You wish to demonstrate to the press the safety of the suit?”_ Jarvis inquired, a noticeable hint of curiosity peaking in his soft voice.

“Nope,” Tony replied. “We both know how safe it is.” He swallowed another gulp of coffee, hoping that it would serve to settle his stomach. He thought back to the folder, having memorised the report inside to all its entirety. He could picture Obadiah now, and the headline written above him. His eyes narrowed.

 _Normally I’m ok with him handling things,_ he thought to himself, walking towards the worktable. _But when I get left out it’s personal._

He wasn’t going to attend the press conference tomorrow afternoon, but he _was_ going to have a word with him.

“I wanna demonstrate the safety of the suit to Obie,” he continued, grabbing a visor and settling it on his brow before lowering it over his eyes. “Might help clear up some loose ends. He doesn’t know about it after all.”

 _“A wise idea sir,”_ Jarvis answered, and Tony thought he could detect a certain degree of sarcasm in his tone.

“I meant the Iron Man suit, Jarv. You think I’m gonna tell him about _this_?” Tony scoffed, sounding incredulous. “That’d be suicide.” He looked back to the monitors, regarding the model before him carefully. _Can’t do much about the body until I get that arc reactor sorted out. I’ll have to go down there tomorrow regardless._

“What’s the likelihood of us getting twenty five percent of this completed tonight?” He asked, crossing his arms over his chest as he continued to regard the model thoughtfully.

 _“It is certainly possible,”_ Jarvis concluded after a moment. _“The current estimation of a twenty five percent maximum completion rate will take five hours and thirty six minutes, sir.”_

Tony glanced at the clock again. This would keep him busy until about 6:30 in the morning. He nodded, rolling his sleeves up and draining off the last of his coffee.

“Don’t wait up for me, honey.”

 He bowed his head and prepared to work.

* * *

“Good afternoon, Mr Stark.”

A curt nod was his response, Tony making it clearly obvious that he was far too distracted to engage in conversation with the busty blonde behind the counter. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the pout on her full red lips – what was her name? Sharon? Shauna? – and with a disdainful sniff she returned to her work.

The office was booming with activity, the press conference being the talk of the entire company. Everywhere he walked, his steps echoing through the pristine white halls, he could hear the whispers and the raised voices talking about Obadiah and the board of directors. He would have stopped to ask them about it all, but for today Tony Stark was a man on a mission, and his mission was taking him to the arc reactor chamber built in the opulent facility before him.

Seeing the black Mercedes parked outside, film crew and reporters rushing to and fro like sheep without a shepherd, Tony backtracked into the recesses of the corridor closest to his right-hand side, holding his breath as they flocked into the hallway he’d just left. They were en route to the reception desk, no doubt. Probably going to ask about his whereabouts or the whereabouts of Obadiah. He could imagine the questions now: “Where is Tony Stark?” “Do you know why he wasn’t invited to his own company meeting?”

He snorted faintly. _Wouldn’t we both like to know._

Straightening his loose shirt and tie he spared another cautious glance down the corridor behind him, and deeming it to be clear he calmly exited the doorway and walked as quickly as he could towards the chamber dead ahead, its domed structure an ominous presence at the heart of Stark Industries. Six hundred feet tall it was easily the largest and most recognisable building his company had; the pulsing violet glow of energy which could be seen spitting forth every so often licking at the clear glass roofing like a storm threatening to erupt in the chamber’s very core.

He reached into his pocket, took out his key card, and swiping it in front of the security lock he stepped back as the doors swung outwards to admit him through. Clearing his throat he stepped into the chamber, the overwhelming growl of energy that thundered through the air enough to make him momentarily deaf. He was also glad he’d decided not to wear a jacket, seeing as the heat from the energy the arc reactor prototype before him emitted was enough to rival almost a hundred degrees.

“There you are,” he murmured, crossing his arms over his chest and frowning thoughtfully as he gazed up at the churning mass of voltage contained in the barrier that reached from the ground to the ceiling. Exactly like the reactor he wore in his chest. Only a hundred times bigger. “Now what to do with you…”

He’d been working all through the morning, ignoring Jarvis’s pleas for him to get some rest in favour of the model that they’d been methodically building all through the night. When 6:30 had come around and Jarvis reminded him that they’d reached the twenty five percent maximum in terms of how much they could build without the arc reactor, Tony had simply ignored him. He’d begun to tinker, and he’d worked on the gauntlets instead.

Then the helmet.

Then the alloys for the chest guard.

It was only after Jarvis had forcibly shut down all holograms and robotics in the workshop that Tony had begrudgingly allowed himself to step back and sleep, eat and shower. So as he stood here now, thankfully fortunate enough to have avoided the rush of the press and the roaming eyes of the company’s workers, he took the narrow window of opportunity he was presented with in this moment of solitude to pull from his pockets a small handheld screen, eager to get back to work. He reached into his pockets again and drew forth an earpiece – his own design of course – and inserting the metallic bud into his right ear he turned it on using the screen which flared to life in his hand.

“Jarv, I’m grabbing the data on the arc reactor now,” he murmured lowly, raising the screen and moving the focus to take in the sizeable glowing shield of energy before him. He didn’t wait for an answer from his AI, rather he waited for the chemical components to download so he could send them straight to Jarvis to begin immediate tests on. As soon as the confirmation message bleeped on screen he lowered it, carefully tapping the bud in his ear to better hear his AI over the roar of the turbines keeping the arc reactor online and running.

“See what you can do to make this malleable enough to melt down.”

_“At once, sir.”_

As he waited he crossed his arms over his chest again, staring straight ahead at the glowing reactor above him, running calculations, methods, procedures in his head as a means to keep himself focused, occupied… he couldn’t replicate the arc reactor in his chest, it wouldn’t melt enough to provide for all the energy they would need to power the entire model. Besides, he’d made his own modifications – the palladium input was carefully regulated, otherwise the risk of poisoning would have left him for dead the moment he’d put it in his chest. No, he needed pure energy. Pure, untainted energy to get this to work, and that’s why he’d begun to run tests on the arc reactor at Stark Industries. From there, he could determine the components, melt it down to liquid form, fuse it with the alloys and—

Jarvis interrupted his thoughts, his smooth voice drifting through Tony’s ears with some degree of urgency.

_“Sir, the press conference has just concluded. Mr Stane is making his way to the facility now.”_

Tony nodded, offering a quick “thanks” to Jarvis before removing the bud from his ear and placing both it and the screen back inside his pocket. Glancing around him, he checked to make sure he was indeed alone before he attempted to make his exit – only to stop dead in his tracks as he saw the tall figure of Obadiah himself approaching the chamber in quickened strides, cigar lit and puffing smoke from his mouth.

“Shit,” he muttered, having no choice but to remain where he stood, knowing that Obadiah would see him no matter what. Ideally, he wanted to wait until _after_ he’d finished in the chamber. But apparently he couldn’t always get his way. _Better to get this over and done with now, I s’pose…_

“Tony?”

The smile he fixed on his mouth was forced as Tony looked at the older man, Obadiah Stane approaching him with a clear look of surprise on his rugged face. Tony could tell by the sheen on his bald head, the sweat that dripped slowly down his cheeks and the agitated way he chewed on the stick of the cigar in his mouth that the press conference had gone anything but smoothly. He nodded to him, turning his attention back to the reactor as Stane drew up alongside him.

“How’d the meeting go?”

Obadiah glanced at him again, his eyes narrowing ever so faintly in what Tony assumed was suspicion of some kind. Not that he could blame him, really. After all Tony wasn’t invited to attend.

“Sarah tell you?” Obadiah guessed, his dark eyes continuing to both narrow at Tony and study him at the same time. _Sarah. That’s her name,_ Tony thought, thinking back to the blonde receptionist he’d passed on his way here. He shrugged.

“Yeah. Kinda.” That would have to do.

Obadiah continued to study him a moment longer, before letting out a low chuckle and pulling the cigar from his lips.

“It uh… it went well.”

“Did I just paint a target on the back of my head?” Tony asked, his smile slipping into a humourless grin now as he leant his arms over the railing separating the reactor from the platform before it. He could feel sharp eyes trained on him again.

“ _Your_ head? What about _my_ head?” Obadiah asked, incredulity taking his tone now as he turned to face the younger man. “What do you think the over-under on the stock drop is gonna be tomorrow?”

 _So that’s what the meeting was about,_ Tony mused. He felt himself relax. If the board of directors just wanted to have a pissing contest about his conference the other day and his decision to shut down the weapons firm, _this_ he could deal with not being invited to. It was clear that for the past two hours Obadiah had been trying to calm the press down. He really didn’t give him enough credit.

“Uh, optimistically… forty points,” he guessed, not really paying attention to the question. Obadiah leant closer, and Tony could smell the reek of the cigar on his breath.

“At _minimum_.” Then he drew back, and as he did so the rancid scent receded with him. It was a moment until Tony could breathe again.

“Yep…”

“Tony, we’re a weapons manufacturer,” Stane continued, pacing now as he took his cigar and sucked in another mouthful of smoke. “Needless to say the shit I had to deal with in that meeting… I had to stick my neck out all the way for you, you _do_ realise that right? The world has expectations and they _expect us_ to make weapons! The press are like wolves, they—”

“Obie, I don’t want a body count to be our only legacy.” Obadiah paused, standing tall as Tony turned to face him, all dry humour gone from his face in an instant as he murmured those low words. He held the older man’s gaze, not wanting to back down. If he was going to make a legacy, then Iron Man would be it. He hadn’t been so sure about anything in his life until he came back from Afghanistan. He was about to open his mouth again to make that point known when he was cut off.           

“That’s what we do. We’re iron mongers,” Obadiah said quietly. “We make weapons.”

For a moment Tony felt his mouth quivering, a sharp retort forming itself on his lips. But instead he extended a hand, gesturing to the chamber they were standing in, and by extent the entire company itself.

“It’s my name on the side of the building.”

“And what we do keeps the world from falling into chaos.” Stane’s arm was back around Tony’s shoulder, and Tony tried his best to stand his ground.

“Not based on what I saw,” Tony continued, turning to look Obadiah directly in the eyes. “We’re not doing a good enough job. We can do better, we’re gonna do something else.” The destruction, the death in Afghanistan… he remembered it. All of it. That was what kept him up at night. That was what fuelled his decision to take Stark Industries off the grid, make them safe. Make the _world_ safe.

“Like what?” And the humour was evident in Stane’s voice now as he removed his hand from Tony’s shoulder, at last giving the younger man space to breathe again. “You want us to make baby bottles?”

 _If it helps, then why not?_ He wanted to say it. He wanted to. But instead he looked at the arc reactor, considering the thrumming voltage of energy that continued to coil and spit in its barrier.

“I think we should take another look into arc reactor technology,” he murmured. _If I’m going to break Iron Man to him, this is where I start._  

“Oh come on, the _arc reactor_?!” Stane had risen his voice, plaintive irritation taking over now as he threw both hands up and gestured to the reactor before them. “That’s a publicity stunt! Tony, come on – we built that thing to shut the hippies up!”

Tony’s response was resolute.

“It works.”

Stane froze, his eyes darting first from Tony then to the reactor behind him. Tony could almost see the veins in his temples popping in barely suppressed anger as Obadiah clasped a hand to his forehead.

“Yeah, as a science project! The arc was never cost effective, we knew that before we built it! Arc reactor technology, that’s a dead end! Right?” When he pulled his hand away he’d fixed Tony with a pleading glare. Tony resisted the urge to smile. He had Obadiah Stane by the balls on this one and he wasn’t going to let go. He’d already reeled him in. But he kept it quiet, played it cool. He was on home ground.

“Maybe,” Tony answered with a loose shrug of his shoulders.

Stane took a step forwards.

“Huh, am I right?” He continued, carefully now as he clasped Tony’s shoulder firmly with his right hand. His grip was strong, no doubt trying to remind Tony where he was and who was technically in charge around here now after he’d gone and made even more of a name for himself at that press conference. Tony didn’t budge. But even so, as Stane leant back in, he could see the look in his eyes… the look that clearly stated that despite all this he still knew something Tony didn’t… his stomach churned. This was not what he was expecting. “We haven’t had a breakthrough in that in, what? Thirty years.”

“That’s what they say,” Tony muttered, narrowing his eyes and turning to face Obadiah fully. He studied him for a moment, saw the way those bearded lips twitched ever so slightly, saw the way those steel-grey eyes focused on him… seemed to dig right into his head, worm right on through and force him to divulge his secrets. He wasn’t impressed. “Could you have a lousier poker face? Just tell me. Who told you?”

The faint chuckle the older man gave didn’t help ease Tony’s frame of mind.

“Never mind who told me. Show me.” He gestured with his cigar to Tony’s chest – more specifically, the exact centre of his chest in which the arc reactor was housed. Tony was hesitant at first, his eyes narrowing further, his hands paused halfway from his shirt buttons. He didn’t know how Stane could have possibly known about this. He sure as hell hadn’t told him. In fact, he knew that no one had told him unless it was—

“It’s Rhodey or Pepper.” Tony sighed, closing his eyes and shaking his head. _I can’t believe this…_

“I wanna see it.” Obadiah was growing impatient, and Tony grunted under his breath as he worked on popping first one button and then the next.

“Ok, Rhodey,” he finished as he’d pulled the folds of his shirt away to reveal the pulsing blue electromagnet nestled snugly in the cavity his chest bore. _I’m gonna have a long talk with him when this is done._

Obadiah wasn’t paying any attention. His eyes had locked on the arc reactor, so many emotions playing over his face – incredulity, awe, disbelief – that Tony couldn’t keep track of them. Stane’s thick fingers reached out, a laugh escaping him as he set to re-buttoning his shirt and focusing his gaze back on Tony.

“Ok…” He murmured quietly.  

“It works,” Tony uttered again, though this time he found he couldn’t say it with as much conviction as he had earlier. He didn’t know what it was… but the idea of telling Stane about Iron Man seemed... ill-advised. He would have scoffed then, if he could have. That would be exactly what Jarvis would say. But whatever it was, whatever was going on, he thought he would leave it for now. There was already too much going on. Leave the big reveal for when everything was finally hooked up and ready to go. _Yeah… I’ll leave it ‘til then…_

“Listen to me, Tony. We’re a _team_ , do you understand?” Stane smiled, but Tony – who had long since perfected the art of forcing smiles on his face – could see that this particular smile didn’t carry with it as much sincerity as Stane’s words otherwise led him to believe. So he stood still, didn’t say a word even as the man slung his arm back around his shoulder, the stick of his cigar coming dangerously close to within an inch of his eye from how loosely he waved it around with his hand as if to emphasise his point. “There’s nothing we can’t do if we stick _together_ – like your father and I.”

His father. Tony felt a bitter taste enter his mouth. Bile? Probably. There were many things he didn’t appreciate in life, and his father was one of them.

“I’m sorry I didn’t give you a heads up, ok? But if I had—” He trailed off. If he had… well. He wasn’t sure how this conversation would have turned out if he’d told Stane about everything. He wasn’t sure he _wanted_ to know, now. Given the way Obie was acting… Tony felt it was safer to keep his distance. At least just for a little while longer until he could sort this all out.

“Tony, Tony… no more of this ‘ready, fire, aim’ business. You understand me?” Stane was looking at him with pity in his eyes, and that coupled with his choice of words threatened to make the bile creep a steady inch closer to the back of Tony’s throat.

“That was dad’s line,” he muttered.

Stane only smiled, clapping Tony on the shoulder before removing his hand again and lowering it to the younger man’s back, steering him out of the chamber towards the doors. The cool wind outside was a blessing that shook off the sweltering heat of the arc reactor, and Tony found himself sucking in mouthful after mouthful of fresh air the moment they stepped onto the company grounds. In the distance the press could be seen driving off, the reporters apparently having gotten all they’d needed to hear from the conference. It would be another three hours until their stories made newslines tonight. Tony made sure that he would be watching.

“You gotta let me handle this. We’re gonna have to play a whole different kind of ball now,” Stane continued, raising his voice now so he could be heard over the gusts of wind that blew overhead. The clouds were rolling in. It looked like it was going to rain. “We’re going to have to take a lot of heat. I want you to _promise_ me that you’re gonna lay low…”

If it rained that would put a damper on the tests Tony was hoping to get through tonight. If, by some crazy chance he could pull off the final design for the model tonight there would have to be testing under all weather conditions, but rain wasn’t the first thing he wanted to subject Jarvis to. Baby steps. Work slowly upwards. Rain would prove too problematic at this stage, it would affect the readings, the temperature gauges, the—

“Tony?”

He blinked, only now realising that Obadiah had still been talking to him. He cleared his throat, fixing him a quick look and patting his shoulder lightly before walking off, pulling himself out of the man’s uneasy hold on his back.

“Yeah, gotcha. Lay low. All that B.S. I need to head back Obie, I’ll catch you tomorrow.”

He’d already raised his hand and waved it in farewell, leaving Obadiah Stane standing where he stood, his eyes boring into Tony’s back as the younger man jogged off towards the back of the facility where he’d carefully parked his car out of sight of the roaming eyes of the press earlier on. It wasn’t until he’d cleared the loading dock gates and taken a right outside the fenced-off power plant that he slowed down to a walk, panting softly as he rubbed his brow with the back of his hand.

“What the hell was that?” He breathed, looking behind him at the outline of the facility that dominated the skyline before him, Stane’s words still echoing in his brain like the thundering sound of drums. He found his car, jumping inside and slamming the door shut as he did so, not even bothering with the seatbelt as he slid the keys into the ignition whilst the engine growled to life.

Resting his hands against the wheel, knuckles turning white as he gripped the smooth leather, he took a moment to think.

He couldn’t shake it. Somehow… _somehow_ … he felt like something was wrong. What was it? Was it Obadiah learning about the arc reactor before Tony had had a chance to tell him? Or was it what he’d said, the way the smile didn’t meet his eyes as he told Tony that they had to work together on this? He didn’t know. He only hoped that when the conference hit the news tonight, that might give him the answers he was seeking. But for now…

He put the car into gear and accelerated off the curb, en route back home.

For now he had a new suit to build.

* * *

_"Welcome home, sir.”_

Tony nodded, raising his hand in a wave to Jarvis’s greeting as he entered his house, the door sliding open to automatically admit him through as soon as he approached. He sighed, tiredly rubbing the back of his neck and rolling his shoulders to alleviate the crick in his neck he’d earned from the less than gracious way he’d been sleeping that morning. Heading straight for the kitchen, he glanced out the transparent glass panelling that comprised the far wall of the foyer, a contemplative look entering his hazel eyes at the clouds remaining an ominous grey shroud over the sea in the horizon.

He poured himself a double scotch, draining it in one gulp before pouring yet another. It was only after he’d downed the second glass that he paused, closing his eyes for a moment.

_“Sir?”_

He heard Jarvis’s careful inquiry and a bitter smile pulled at his lips.

“I’m fine, Jarv,” he muttered. “Just got a lot on my mind is all.” _Work. I need to work._ “Can we get the project models up here?”

He placed the empty glass on the kitchen counter and walked forwards as the holo-screens opened up before him, detailing the progress made on the body of the suit. As he flicked from screen to screen, dragging forth one plate of metal here, throwing it away into the bin there, turning the model around and taking it in from all sides, he opened his mouth again to speak, distracting himself with focusing on the project as he continued.

“Did I get any calls while I was away?”

_“Miss Potts left a message for you, sir.”_

“Good,” Tony muttered. “Delete it.”

Jarvis did so without question, which Tony knew meant that the AI was put-off by his mood and wanted to know what was wrong with him. He almost smiled at that. Almost.

 _“I have completed the tests on the arc reactor,”_ Jarvis continued, and this grabbed Tony’s attention as he looked at the results which spilled onto the screen next to him. _“The chemical structure is easily malleable enough to produce the liquid state required for fusion. In addition, silicon and palladium input will ensure that the molten energy will remain constant throughout the constructing process and beyond.”_

Tony breathed a sigh of relief, the smile broad on his lips now as he rubbed a hand over his face again.

“Great, fantastic. And having the silicon exoskeleton will prevent the palladium from reacting, yes?”

_“That is correct, sir. In fact, as I told you last night, we will be looking at a molecular structure similar to that of vibranium.”_

Tony felt giddy. He couldn’t remember being so excited about something since he’d successfully created Jarvis for the first time. It was almost enough to make him forget about Stane. Almost.

“Well what are we waiting around for? Let’s get started. Have you finalised the look of the model yet?” He knew Jarvis had – he’d shown him the designs before, after all. But given that Jarvis was programmed to learn and react accordingly, there may have been one or two adjustments he’d made when Tony wasn’t around.

 _“That was my next question, sir. I was hoping to get your approval on my suggestions,”_ Jarvis answered, and Tony could have sworn he heard pride in his voice. His newfound good mood lightened considerably, and pulling out the nearby kitchen bench stool and sitting himself down, he spread his arms to the holo-screens.

“Take me to church,” he announced. On cue the screens flipped, expanded and morphed before his eyes, the results of the arc reactor test being pushed neatly to the side to be replaced by the life-size image of the model that Jarvis himself had been masterminding. As soon as the diagrams uploaded 100%, Tony took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then exhaled slowly. He felt his heart pump blood in fitful, sluggish bursts through his chest. He could tell Jarvis was monitoring that closely, too. Hell, he’d be lucky if he didn’t need to get an ambulance called in.

“Jarv…” He mouthed, unable to raise his voice above a whisper as he raked his eyes from top to bottom, drinking it in like a man dying of thirst. “You’ve really outdone yourself with this one…”

_“I take it you find this acceptable, sir?”_

Tony blinked.

“Do I? I mean, yeah. _Yeah_ I do! Jarvis, this is… this—” He rose a hand to his mouth, having to bite down forcefully on a knuckle to stop himself from grinning like a ten year old. Because that’s what he felt like. _It’s Christmas. It’s Merry-fucking-Christmas in here right now…_

“Jesus, that’s _beautiful…_ ” He stood up, approaching the projection and running his hands over the model, taking it apart here, there, inspecting the components needed to replicate it, all the intricate workings that would make it function effectively. His hands were shaking. “Jarvis, you’re brilliant. In every way. And by extent that also means I’m brilliant but we already knew that.” He grinned, feeling like his face was split in two. “Where do I even begin…”

 _“Thank you, sir,”_ Jarvis replied, and Tony would be damned if he didn’t think that Jarvis sounded pleased to all hell by that. _“Would you like us to proceed with this tonight?”_

“No, not tonight. Now. Right now. We’re doing this, Jarvis! Remember, our deadline is by the end of this week!” Tony announced, jumping off his seat and not bothering to push it back before taking off into a quick jog down towards the workshop. “I want all calls, all messages, all emails to be redirected and or deleted if they’re from anyone who doesn’t have a reason to want to call me. That means all press, all journalists, all corporations – anyone I don’t give a shit about,” he continued as he reached the ground floor, striding through to the workshop and taking his usual place at the large bench in the centre, of which he was pleased to see the products of last night’s and this morning’s efforts still laid out for his continuation when he returned. The lights switched on, the holo-screens spread out around him, and DUM-E and U chirped enthusiastically at their creator’s presence as he walked to and fro before them, gathering equipment as he did.

_“I have made a note, sir. But, if I may…”_

“What’s wrong, J?” Tony’s voice was muffled around the wire he’d momentarily clenched in his teeth for lack of anywhere to hold onto it with both hands full.

_“I cannot help but feel that your urgency is in part due to your meeting with Mr Stane earlier on.”_

Tony spat the wire out of his mouth, his good mood now having deflated considerably as he narrowed his eyes at the nearby monitor. Behind him he could hear the robots pause in their scuttling, as if they were worried that they would somehow be deactivated if they so much as made a noise while he seethed quietly to himself. He did no such thing, however. Rather he cleared his throat, keeping his voice low as he picked up the wire again.

“Just when I was gettin’ over that you have to pull me back in, Jarvis. Sometimes I think you have a real sadistic streak, you know that right?”

 _“That is a supremely false accusation, sir,”_ Jarvis reminded him calmly. _“However I would appreciate it if you inform me of what happened.”_

“Nothing happened.” Tony knew that Jarvis could sense the bullshit from a mile away, but that didn’t stop him from trying nevertheless. But the longer the silence continued, the longer Jarvis waited calmly, patiently for him to tell him exactly what it was he wanted to hear, the more Tony grew exasperated – and eventually, he begrudgingly agreed. “Fine. I wanna keep a close eye on the news tonight. See what’s goin’ on with that conference.”

_“Did it not go well, sir?”_

“I dunno,” Tony muttered. “He didn’t say.” And it was precisely that which was worrying him. What Obadiah hadn’t said. “You ever get that feeling sometimes where you think people are keeping stuff from you?”

_“No, sir. But I am familiar with your experiences of such things.”_

“Close enough.” The wires were assembled now, and Tony let Jarvis continue where they’d left off this morning, the hydraulic arms lining either side of the workbench reaching down to weld and heat the wires to the palladium-alloy skeleton. “How would you feel if I upped the ante on this and said I wanted it finished by Friday night?”

_“Calculating probability of one hundred percent completion now.”_

As Tony waited, he drummed his fingers idly against the table, looking back up at the model projected onto the holo-screen in front of his eyes. If he focused enough on the light blue he was met with, the sharp defined features, the more he found he was itching to sink his teeth into this. The suit was complete. All that remained was the model itself. He was vaguely aware of the thump of his heart, the twitch in his fingertips, and the swallow of his throat; anxiety, trepidation, excitement all rolling into one. He didn’t move until Jarvis’s soft voice broke him out of his trance.

_“Everything is in order, sir. We will be able to complete this by Friday evening if we resume construction now.”_

Tony let out the breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. His hands tightened around the tools he’d thrown in front of him on the desk.

“Alright. Let’s do this. You excited, Jarvis?”

_“I am, sir.”_

And he was, if the slightest trace of breathlessness in the AIs voice was anything to go by. Tony chuckled.

“That’s what I like to hear. Now keep an eye on that TV for me too while you’re at it – might give me more inspiration to take this up a notch and get it done by Thursday instead.”

 _“That would be pushing it, sir.”_ Jarvis didn’t even try to hide how uneasy he sounded. Tony’s smile turned bitter, and he glanced at the nearby monitor again.

“Yeah, well… he’s pushing _me_.”

He didn’t need to state who ‘he’ was.

Jarvis already knew.      

* * *

He’d been holed up in his workshop for three days.

When he wasn’t taking 10 minutes to eat, shower and visit the bathroom, he would spare only two hours to close his eyes, take a nap and then wake up running off fumes. Jarvis was always there to tell him to take it easy, to recuperate and come back after a full hot meal, a lengthy shower and eight hours of sleep, but Tony wasn’t having any of it. Every time his response would be that they had come so far. If he stopped now, they wouldn’t meet the deadline.

Jarvis couldn’t do anything but begrudgingly agree.

The news that blared on the TV all day, every day was nothing Tony had any particular interest in. It turned out that the report on the press conference was nothing but white noise – Obadiah merely offering half an hour of his time to tell everyone that Stark Industries was undergoing “radical change” and would be focusing their attention on more worthwhile matters of national protection in the future. Tony wasn’t buying it, and he’d told Jarvis as much. But unless there was proof otherwise (which as of now, there wasn’t), they could do nothing but stand back and leave both him and the company alone.

“Lay low,” Obadiah had told Tony. He planned to.

The model was coming along beautifully. Three days in and they were at 70% completion. Looking down at it now from where he was meticulously fusing the molten liquid from the new arc reactor he’d made with the maze of circuitry and wires nestled neatly inside the palladium-plated skeleton, it took all his self-control to keep his hands steady. Stepping back now, his visor in place to shield his eyes from the bright spark of violent blue that pooled within the wires and powered the circuits with a calming electric hum, he had to place his hands flat on the desk to keep them from shaking.

It was almost done. The energy in that thing was enough to keep it self-sustaining indefinitely for at least another eighty-odd years. _All the time in the world_ , he mused. But they weren’t at the stage to put it online yet. There were just a few more minor adjustments to make. The head, predominantly. 

He heard the speakers crackle; a slight whisper of a noise that caressed the air like a soft intake of breath. Tony’s grin was wild.

“Lookin’ good, Jarv?”

_“Oh yes, sir…”_

Tony didn’t think he’d ever been prouder of his AI than he had in that moment. He sounded positively ecstatic.

“Just think – this time tomorrow we could probably get the first test run out of the way. This is your baby, J. You gotta own it. Feel it out. Live a little.”

_“I can assure you sir, when I integrate myself I fully intend to do all three.”_

“That’s my boy.” And Tony couldn’t hold back the laugh if he’d tried. He stepped back for a minute, smile still wide on his lips as he ran his palms carefully down the moulded silicon exoskeleton, feeling the hardness of the substance, delighting in how remarkably soft it was at the same time. It was warm. Fully functional. Able to process vibrations like his hands upon its surface and read the feedback as ‘touch’. It could feel. It was a masterpiece in its own right, and it was entirely Jarvis’s idea. Jarvis’s creation. Tony could think of no better gift for his AI.            

A slight shock of blue caught his eye, and the smile grew on his lips when he leant down to inspect the wiry vein-like protrusions barely visible through the pale silicon exterior. Veins of arc reactor energy, 100% home-made.

 _Blue blood._ Tony admired it, relished in the sight and knowledge of it, straightening back up to take in the entirety of this masterpiece.

 _“Sir, your heart rate has increased by forty five percent,”_ Jarvis spoke up quietly, though this time there was no chastising air to his words, no concerned undertones. He was amused – a little flustered, even. Tony chuckled.

“Looking at this I’m surprised it hasn’t kicked up to around five hundred percent already.”

_“I sincerely hope it never reaches that stage, sir. You would undoubtedly be dead.”_

“Charming.”

If there was an answering comment Jarvis offered, Tony didn’t hear it. His attention had momentarily been diverted by the announcement he’d just heard on the TV, which had been playing as background noise whilst they had been working. Looking at the screen he saw a middle aged woman standing on a red carpet, microphone in her hands as she held the camera’s line of sight with eyes glittering and gleaming almost as much as the flashes of the paparazzi’s cameras around her.

_“—Tonight’s red-hot red carpet is right here at the Disney Concert Hall, where Tony Stark’s third annual benefit for the Firefighter’s Family Fund has become the place to be for LA’s high society—”_

Tony paused, his brows furrowing as he regarded the reporter carefully.

“Jarvis, we get an invite for that?”

 _“I have no record of an invitation, sir.”_ Jarvis sounded just as confused as Tony felt.

He frowned again. _Firefighter’s fund?_ With all that had transpired over the last few months, he found his memory of the event was somewhat foggy. He rarely made it a note to remember all the galas he’d been hosting or invited to over the course of his high-end, high-octane career – not even the money he’d spent or gained nor the countless women he’d bedded. On the screen the reporter continued her spiel, brushing an elegant hand towards the nape of her neck to tuck her hair behind her ear.

_“—Hasn’t been seen in public since his bizarre and highly controversial press conference. Some claim he’s suffering from post-traumatic stress and has been bedridden for weeks. Whatever the case may be, no one expects an appearance from him tonight.”_

Tony had had enough.

“Mute,” he muttered, and the TV fell silent as he exhaled a low breath and turned back to face his desk.

_“Sir… I would advise against—”_

“I gotta go.” Tony sat up, sparing a last apologetic glance (if not somewhat saddened) to the project he’d found himself forced to abandon continuing with tonight. “Something’s up. I wanna find out what.” There was no reason why he wouldn’t have been invited. It was like that press conference all over again.

 _“… Very well, sir,”_ Jarvis sighed, and Tony turned his head to glance curiously at the monitors as he paused halfway towards the workshop door. _“I will continue with the model. I estimate a further ninety percent completion rate by the time you return.”_

The smile Tony offered was forced, though the look in his eyes was clearly thankful as he nodded.

“You know when I’m gonna come back?”

_“Admittedly not, sir. But I can only remain optimistic.”_

Tony forced a laugh.

“Miss you too, J.” And leaving him to his project, he jogged up the stairs, exiting his workshop and making a beeline towards his bedroom to grab a quick shower and a change of clothes. One hour tops was all he was willing to spend at this party tonight.

Somehow he knew that one hour would be all he’d need.

* * *

Pay the valet to take his car, sidestep through the throngs of clinging celebrities and paparazzi, offer one or two words of apology for his absence, rinse and repeat.

Tony went through the motions, but he wasn’t feeling. Wasn’t soaking the attention up like he so usually would. Didn’t care to offer the brunette twins by the door a slow wink and a casual brush of his hands across the small of their backs, nor did he even attempt to chat up the feisty blondes at the end of the red carpet who were hissing to one another over some falling out they had.

He was looking for Obadiah Stane, knowing that if anyone was here tonight on his behalf, it would be him.

He found him, talking to the cameras just before the hall entrance. His eyes narrowed behind his tinted shades, Tony calmly pushed one rather enthusiastic reporter out of the way as he approached the balding man.

He froze mid-speech, his dark eyes settling on Tony’s figure. The look on his face clearly gave away his shock. Tony steeled himself, took a deep breath, shoved the next reporter out of the way and forced the widest grin on his mouth as he possibly could.

“What’s the world coming to when a guy’s gotta crash his own party?” He clapped Stane on the shoulder, keeping up friendly appearances. On the inside he was fuming.

“Look at you… hey, what a surprise…” Stane laughed slowly, clapping Tony on the back and studying him carefully with a gaze that was carefully guarded. Tony removed his hand and stepped back.

“I’ll see you inside—”

“Hey, listen,” Obadiah was on him again, drawing Tony back and wrapping his arm once more around his shoulders as he murmured lowly into his ear. “Take it slow alright? I think I’ve got the board right where we want them.”

 _Which is where, exactly?_ Tony didn’t ask, though. He saw the press. Knew they’d pick up on it immediately. So he played it safe. Put on his billion-dollar act.

“You got it. Just cabin fever,” he quickly continued, jabbing his thumb in the direction of the foyer, an apologetic tone entering his voice. “I’ll just be a minute.”

He excused himself as Obadiah nodded, and he set off in a brisk pace towards the bar, weaving through the crowds that spilled to and fro from the opened doors. He wanted a drink. And if that drink just so happened to give him an opportunity to observe from the sidelines… well. He wasn’t going to tell anyone that.

He’d ordered a scotch, (said he’d been starving, which in truth he was. He hadn’t eaten anything all day much to Jarvis’s chagrin) and sipping from the glass he drank in the sights like he drank in the heady rush of alcohol. Women in low-backed gowns, men in well-pressed suits, the dancefloor a flurry of colour and motion as the orchestra played in the background.

He could hear laughter, conversation, raised voices. The hall was a thrum of human activity tonight and normally Tony would rather be the primary focus of said activity – drinking to his heart’s content and having his way with the first fifteen girls he managed to pick up on his way towards a private room somewhere – but with Stane lurking around the place he found he rather lost his appetite for such things. He glanced down at his watch and noted that it had been twenty minutes in to the hour he’d set for himself. He drained off the rest of his scotch, placing the glass back down on the counter behind him.

_Forty minutes Tony. Let’s get this show on the road._

Unfortunately he just so happened to make his move when he saw a head of familiar blonde hair turn the corner, attached to a face that was again all too familiar for his liking. She saw him too, and as he made to turn back to the bar, cussing sharply under his breath, he could hear her heels clacking on the ground behind him.

He was starting to agree with Obadiah’s ‘the press are wolves’ analogy. This one was particularly ruthless.

“Wow… Tony Stark...” He smelt perfume and he wrinkled his nose, the sickeningly sweet scent enough to turn his stomach after he’d spent days in his workshop surrounded by the calming smells of motor oil, grease, electricity, metal…

He fixed his billion-dollar smile back on his lips and turned to look at her, the wolf’s dark eyes and sultry grin far too dazzlingly bright and fake for his liking.

“Oh, hey…” He began, but found he couldn’t really continue with anything more than that. He was trying to remember her name.

“Fancy seeing you here,” she smiled, and the way her thinly-plucked eyebrows arched delicately drove him to strongly suspect that she was perhaps even more trouble than Stane. He froze for a moment. _It started with a ‘C’, didn’t it? Cathy? Connie?_

“… Carrie—”

“ _Christine_ ,” she corrected him, her smile dropping immediately. Tony cleared his throat, crooking his finger towards the barman to serve him another scotch. He needed one after this.

“That’s right…” He muttered under his breath. Christine ignored him.

“You have a lot of nerve showing up here tonight.”

Tony almost arched a brow right back at her. _God, not even five seconds and already she’s launched the offensive. Is this about that night?_ He thought Pepper had made it blatantly clear to this woman that he didn’t form attachments. And even if that hadn’t worked, at least he would have thought the handsome sum of money he’d dumped in the passenger seat of the car he’d organised to pick her up would shut her up. Apparently not. They really were like wolves.

Apparently still waiting for him to say something, Christine laced her hands in front of her.

“Can I at least get a reaction from you?”

He felt a tug at his elbow and Tony looked down to see the fresh glass of scotch. He thanked the barman, picking up his glass and downing half of it in one go.

“Panic,” he said at length as soon as he was able. “I would say panic is my… reaction—”

“—Because I was referring to your company’s involvement in this latest atrocity.”

That made him pause, and for the first time in his brief relationship with this woman he gave her his full, undivided attention.

“Yeah they just put my name on the invitation, I dunno what to tell you…” He added emphasis on the last part, because he _didn’t_ know what to tell her – what atrocity? What was going on with the company? He was about to ask but he was cut off again, something Christine was quite skilled in doing he was quickly realising. Probably why she did so well with her job.  

“I actually almost bought it, hook, line and sinker,” she smiled, and her smile was all teeth, all metaphorical fangs bared to tear his throat out. He found his patience quickly drawing to a thin wire, ready to snap at any moment. He straightened up, narrowing his eyes, staring the wolf down.

“I was out of town for a couple months, in case you didn’t hear—”

“Is this what you call accountability?” And before Tony had any chance to react, she’d reached into her purse and pulled forth a small cluster of polaroids. She handed them to him, images face-up, all the while her painted lips pressed together in a thin line, a barely repressed sneer. “It’s a town called Gulmira. Heard of it?” The tone in her voice told him she knew that he had.

Tony didn’t take the pictures for a long while, his mind feeling quite suddenly as if it had drawn to a complete and utter halt. _Gulmira._ He felt the twitch in his fingers, felt the shake in his legs. The tightness of his throat. The fluctuating beat of his heart so close to the arc reactor in his chest which even now burnt like the heat of the electricity that seared all around him, all through him, tore him inside-out as he screamed against that man reaching in and pulling shrapnel shard by shrapnel shard from his battered, bleeding chest…

 _Yinsen._ Yinsen was from Gulmira.

He was going to see his family when they left Afghanistan.

His family was dead. He was going to see them when he was dead.

He felt himself struggle to breathe, and Tony could almost imagine Jarvis saying that he was having an attack, he needed to calm down, focus, regain control… he snatched the pictures from Christine’s hand and forced himself to look at them. He wished he hadn’t.

What he saw was what he’d almost been forced to build in Afghanistan. Jericho missiles. In Gulmira. Death. Destruction. The dying and the dead. With each flick of the pictures, death, death, death, _death—_

“… When were these taken?” He didn’t care for how hoarse he sounded. He looked up, fixed Christine with a stare that clearly told her _if she was going to fuck with him on this, so help him he would rip HER throat out—_

“Yesterday,” she answered, tone solemn now. No doubt she saw how this was affecting him. She’d dropped the act, that bitchy-ravenous-wolf reporter act. Now she was just Christine. Tony could have almost thought of her as a human being.

“I didn’t approve any shipment.” _Who did?_ But as soon as he thought that, he knew. He felt the bile flood his throat. _Of course._

“Well, your company did.” Christine watched him carefully. Tony’s lips twitched, a bitter sneer twisting its ugly way onto his lips, carving right through into his skin.

“Well I’m not my company.”

 _But I know who is._ And he was going to make damn sure he paid.

It wasn’t easy to find him. His legs were threatening to give out. He was running on fumes, fumes and rage and alcohol and he could almost _hear_ Jarvis telling him to take it slow, take it easy, stop, _think_ …

He wished he was actually online here right now, because if he could just hear even a single word of snark from that cool, calming voice as soft as a _fucking silken bedsheet for Christ’s sake_ he could handle this a lot better than he was currently doing. He found him, eventually, shooing away the press that had gathered before him, hounding and surrounding him on all sides. Wolves. All of them.

“Please, do you mind?” Stane was growing impatient, his formalities dropping as he pushed one unlucky son of a bitch out of the way, making sure his hand caught the camera upfront and personal.

He looked around when Tony slammed a hand down on his arm, being sure to dig his fingers none-too-gently into his shoulder blades. Obadiah quickly shooed off the rest of the press, only turning to face Tony fully as soon as they’d been given five feet of room. The surprise and annoyance was heavily etched onto his face, but Tony ignored it in favour of cutting straight to the chase. He flashed the photos in front of Stane, making sure he got a good look at them before he rounded on him.

“Have you seen these pictures?” Tony hissed quietly as Obadiah quickly span them around so their backs were to the cameras. “Huh? _What’s going on in Gulmira?!”_

“Tony, Tony…” Stane murmured lowly, as if trying to console Tony into calming down, maintaining his cool. He smiled at him, but it was just as fake as the rest of the smiles he’d ever thrown his way. “You can’t afford to be this naïve.”

And that was it. Tony felt his stomach drop. Felt the arc reactor twitch in his chest. Felt his heart bubble up and explode. He felt betrayed. Scandalised. Angry.

Scared.

“You know what?” And it took all his self-control to keep his voice level, even as he clutched the pictures so tightly they crinkled in his hold and grew ruined beyond all recognition. “I was naïve before, when they said ‘here’s the line. We don’t cross it. _This_ is how we do business.’ If we’re double-dealing under the table… _are we_?” It was rhetorical. He knew now that they damn well were.

“Tony, your picture please!”

Obadiah sighed.

“Let’s take a picture, come on. Picture time!” He clapped Tony on the back, ignoring Tony’s flinch and obvious attempt to push away. More forcefully now he gripped the younger man by the arm, dragging him forwards to face the press that rushed right back in, cameras flashing and questions screaming from their lips. As Tony was left powerless to do anything save stand there and let it happen, he felt Obadiah lean in close, his whisper so low it went unheard to everybody save him. “Tony… who do you think locked you out? I was the one who filed the injunction against you.”

Tony’s fingers clenched by his side. He swallowed thickly. He found himself wishing he had his suit right now, wishing he could drag Obadiah within an inch of his life towards the cops, let him rot in jail while he took off to Gulmira, repulsors blasting until each and every Stark Industries weapon they’d seized and gotten their terrorist hands on was destroyed.

“It’s the only way I could protect you.”

He blinked, the final clap to his back threatening to shatter his spine. He coughed, lifting his head and boring eyes into Obadiah’s as the man passed a final forced smile onto his lips before preparing to leave. It was only when he’d taken three steps forwards that Tony finally found his tongue, calling out before he could stop himself.

“Who’s going to protect _you?”_

It was a threat. Of course it was. The answer? No one. Because glaring at him now, Tony wanted Stane to know that he was onto him. _You were always a bad liar, Obie._

Obadiah didn’t reply with words.

But this time when he smiled at Tony, it was with murder in his eyes.

* * *

“Jarvis, suit me up. I need to get out there _now_!”

Tony rarely raised his voice at his AI, but when he did Jarvis knew that he meant business. The whole house knew he meant business. Tony ignored the surprised chirping of his robots, his eyes narrowed and only seeing red, venting that deep bloody colour until it was all he could think, all he could feel as he approached the glass barrier that housed the Iron Man suit. Red stared back at him and he felt the sickening tug of bile dance warningly in his throat. He didn’t have much time.   

 _“Sir—”_ Tony didn’t give Jarvis a chance to talk back.

“Jarv, I’m goin’ to Gulmira. Obadiah was double dealing under my very nose, he’s _killing hundreds of people_ and if I don’t do _something_ —”

_“Sir—”_

“—they’re gonna lose a whole lot more than their lives and _I swear to god Jarvis, if you don’t open this suit RIGHT NOW—”_

 _“Sir, under the current circumstances I have to respectfully disobey in favour of overriding protocol.”_ A mechanical whirring drew Tony’s attention and he snapped his head around, frozen in place as a thick, impenetrable wall of metal sheathed itself around the glass chamber the Iron Man suit stood in. It receded back, pulling the suit into its niche in the wall which slid to following the closure of the metal casing around it – the panel alongside the place wherein which the barrier once stood illuminating a bright, burning crimson.

Restricted. Completely off-limits. No one could get in there save for the one directly controlling the keypad. Jarvis. Tony rounded on the monitors by the workbench.

“Jarvis…” He hissed, trying to keep his temper down. “Did you just lock me out?”

 _“I did, sir.”_ The admission was clearly apologetic, but still Jarvis stood his ground. Tony took a step closer. He couldn’t see straight. His vision was swimming.

“Override that protocol—”

_“Sir—”_

“Do it _right now—_ ”

_“Sir!”_

“I am NOT IN THE MOOD FOR THIS, J—”

_“Anthony!”_

Tony fell silent, the hollow cry of his full name from his AI causing him to stop completely in his tracks. He blinked, the sudden silence enough to tear through the anger masking his brain if only for a moment. It still took him one minute too long to realise what had just happened.

“J…?” He sounded hoarse, shaken. He slumped down into the nearby seat. His hands were trembling.

 _“Sir, please_ listen _to me…”_ And Jarvis was pleading with him, his voice – ever calm, ever soft – trembling through the speakers as much as Tony’s fingers were trembling on his knees. _“Your heart rate has accelerated by ninety percent. I cannot let you operate the suit with your current stress levels, to do so would invoke an eighty-nine percent chance of critical battle-related injuries and later, death. You_ cannot _operate the suit.”_

Tony lifted his head. He was feeling drowsy. He heard another whirring above him, this one less mechanical and more robotic. He felt claws similar to hands clamp down on his shoulders, as gentle as a robot could possibly be when it didn’t have the unique sensory input and output of a human being. He didn’t flinch.

“J,” he whispered, his voice ragged, his breathing even more so, “tell me something. When, in your… brilliant… _brilliantly_ annoying coding did you finally gain enough _sentience_ to start ordering _me_ around and telling me what to do?”

The claws on his shoulders remained firm, applying light pressure and then receding, before reaching back down to apply more pressure. It was a rhythmic, methodical movement – there and then gone… there… gone. He recognised these particular limbs to be the very same that Jarvis had used to help him out of his armour when he’d completed his first successful test-run of the Iron Man suit. The thought that these same limbs would be used to give him as close to a massaging back rub as he could manage to calm him down a few weeks later was an irony that was not lost on him.

 _“I am not ordering you, sir. I am concerned.”_ Jarvis sounded quieter than usual. Tony barked a sharp laugh.

“Concerned?!”

 _“My primary function has always been and will_ always _be your safety and wellbeing.”_

“I know that, I programmed that into you Jarv—”

The claws tightened on his shoulders. Not enough to cause pain, but enough to stop Tony mid-sentence. Jarvis wanted him to listen. And listening was the only thing Tony could do right now when his head was struggling to process even the most simple of conversations. He needed to get out. He needed to go to Gulmira. He needed to stop Stane. He needed to—

_“You need to rest, sir…”_

And there it was. That pleading voice. That startlingly well-timed input that oftentimes made Tony wonder if his AI could read his mind. He programmed him to be intelligent, yes, but to be _that_ intelligent? Jarvis was growing on his own. It left him breathless. He grunted, struggling weakly against the claws digging cautiously into his shoulders. They didn’t budge. Jarvis wasn’t letting him go.

“J… I can’t—I can’t rest I need to—”

Something stopped him; the hydraulic sound of machinery in the walls. He lifted his head, eyes wide as he looked at the screens. He hadn’t authorised this. On the monitor he could see the launch. Could see the stats flying. He felt the panic surge.

“Jarvis, what’s going—”

_“I have deployed the suit, sir. Arrival in Gulmira will be an estimated two hours and forty seven minutes.”_

Tony froze again, the claws still remaining a firm yet reassuring presence on his shoulders as he tried to think, tried to process what he’d just heard. _Deployed… the suit?_

“Was… wait… was that—”

 _“Your suit, sir,”_ Jarvis confirmed, the screens before Tony flickering to show him the real-time recordings and monitored feeds of his very own Iron Man suit, running completely on autopilot towards Gulmira. He gulped. His throat felt tight. His hands continued to tremble.

_“You will have your weapons destroyed.”_

Tony closed his eyes.

“Jarvis…” He slumped forwards. The claws tightened on his back, eased him carefully upright again – he felt cool metal against his head, carding through his hair. Felt metal soothing the pain, the anger, the destruction away. Felt that reassuring grip on his shoulder and he broke down. _I’m a mess…_

The strangled choke that echoed around the workshop was his own. He reached up, grasped one claw tightly in his hand, held onto it. He felt the artificial fingers tighten through his own; knead across his thumb, the back of his wrist. Felt soothing caresses through his hair again. Heat pooled at his eyes – an uncomfortable weakness he tried to keep buried away, down below where no one would see it. The tears came anyway, tears of relief, of pent-up stress, of gratitude.

When he finally tilted his head back to blink through blurry eyes it was to see those robotic arms coming down, a finger pressed to his cheek here, to his brow there, running along his back after and tightening around his hand again. Jarvis’s way of saying “I’m here.” He choked again. _My own fucking AI…_

“Jarvis…” He croaked, his voice sounding foreign to his own ears. “I don’t know where to start…”

 _“Tell me what to do, sir.”_ His voice was patient. Gentle. Soft like a fucking silken bedsheet. 

Tony felt the corner of his lips twitch upwards.

“I need you to hack into my office network mainframe… retrieve all the recent shipping manifests.” He was starting to sound like his old self now, that one moment of weakness gone in favour of his voice strengthening, Tony straightening in his chair and keeping a firm hold on the one claw that remained on his hand. _Work. I need to work._ He was breathing easier, felt the calm wash over him to replace his panic with streamlined focus. His eyes narrowed as he watched the screens beep and spread with Jarvis’s current status updates. “It’s probably under Executive Files. If not, they put it on a ghost drive.”

He watched Jarvis hack into the servers, drawing up the list of said files. Stane stored them on the ghost drive, like he’d suspected.

 _“Working on downloading the files now, sir,”_ Jarvis intoned, his voice the one soothing presence to keep everything together as terabyte by terabyte video files and project logs were siphoned from the Stark Industries mainframe. Tony felt himself breathing easier now.

“Good. As soon as you have all the logs send the suit out to each location to destroy the rest of them, wherever they were sent off to. I don’t want a single shipped weapon to survive the end of the night.”

_“Sir…”_

Tony turned to the monitor closest to him.

“Jarv?”

 _“I have located some disconcerting material in amongst the archives…”_ Jarvis sounded hesitant, hesitant and yet the clench in his words at the end was so pronounced, so powerful, that Tony tightened his hand around the claw he was holding – more so for Jarvis’s benefit than his own. It was the closest Jarvis had ever come to sounding angry. Angry or… Tony’s brows knotted, the frown on his face masking the disquiet he was feeling rise like a coiling snake within him. _Angry or frightened._ He was just about to question him when Jarvis continued.

_“Mr Stane ordered the attack on you in Afghanistan, sir.”_

The video, translated from the original Arabic, enlarged full-view on screen. And Tony saw the image of himself bound, helpless, confused and disoriented – surrounded on all sides by those men who held him captive. The Ten Rings. He could remember it. Every second of it. Not able to understand the guttural words growled by his ear from the man holding the paper, talking into the camera that was focusing closer on his face inch by inch, minute by minute... all the while guns pointed at the back of his head, fingers poised on triggers ready to shoot him dead if he so much as moved…  

He remembered hearing something that sounded like Stane’s name uttered once or twice, and hearing the video play out in English now, his suspicions had been confirmed. Stane had given them a prince, and had paid only trinkets. They wanted more, or their deal was off.

Jarvis quickly minimised the screen before Tony could speak. For that he was grateful.   

“… That would explain a couple of things,” he managed to ground out through gritted teeth. He forced a laugh, dry and hoarse.

_“Sir…”_

“Where’s Pepper?”

A moment’s pause – Jarvis no doubt trying to track her whereabouts.

_“She has left for Washington D.C., sir. She has a meeting with Agent Coulson from the Strategic Homeland—”_

“Yeah that guy, right.” Tony sighed, closing his eyes and running his free hand over his eyes. He felt the cautious press of another clawed hand upon his back, as if a hand had come to rest at his spine. He appreciated the gesture, though he outwardly didn’t show a sign of acknowledging it. “I’m glad she’s out of the way.”  _She's safe._

There was another moment of silence. Tony felt his heart finally clock back to normal. The pain in his chest stopped. His mind felt clear. He raised the claw he was holding onto and pressed his lips against the cool metal, opening his eyes to stare directly at the holo-screens in front of him. If he heard the faint intake of breath from the speakers he paid it no mind.

“Stane knows I’m onto him. He’ll be coming ‘round tonight no doubt,” he murmured, flicking through the files that Jarvis had been downloading. He saw the blueprints of a suit that bore remarkable striking resemblance to the one that he had created while in Afghanistan. With a grim smile he realised that Obadiah had most likely gotten his hands on them when he’d ordered that attack. Leaning closer in his seat he read the reports made by the researchers at the facility. Something about arc reactor technology. The same technology Stane had been so quick to dismiss when Tony had brought it up earlier on in the week.

He wanted it. If he was coming round to finish Tony off… that’d be the reason why.

_Over my dead body._

_“I won’t allow him to harm you, sir,”_ Jarvis uttered, as soft as a whisper. Tony raised his brows, feeling the claws that had been idly running along his back and clasping his hand back in turn begin to slowly pull back, leaving him alone in his chair, free to move. He watched them recede back into the ceiling, eyeing them with no small degree of fondness.

“Gettin’ sentimental are we, Jarv?” He tried to joke around, to lighten the mood. It was a losing game. “Didn’t know you had feelings for me.”

_“Sir, I have overridden my base code in order to call you both by your first name and to sit here consoling you for the better part of a half hour. I have no desire to see you dead when I can do something to prevent it. It is indeed personal.”_

Tony rose to his feet, unsteady at first but soon regaining control of himself. The smile on his lips was bitter, marred by the knowledge that Stane would be coming… and he had nothing to defend himself with.

“Love you too, J,” he chuckled drily, deeming that to have been the closest to a confession of the same kind that he was going to get from the AI. He would have time to think about this properly later, the… implications that would arise from Jarvis seemingly having been working on his sentience as well as his own suit.

Tony froze. His eyes widened.

_The suit…_

He was just about to open his mouth, to ask about the progress made when Jarvis beat him to it. He probably _could_ read Tony’s thoughts for all he knew. It didn’t seem to matter now.

 _“I have completed the project, sir…”_ Trepidation. Trepidation that was marred by a great deal of determination echoed in his voice, but Tony’s reaction was far from wary. He span around, mouth gaping open.

“It’s finished…? Where is it?! Where is it, Jarv? C’mon we have to get you in there, we have… we have to—”  

Any further comment he was going to make was stopped by the sound of a phone’s ringtone. Looking around, trying to locate the source of the noise, Tony blinked as he realised that he hadn’t brought his phone down with him. He’d left it upstairs.

 _“Miss Potts is calling, sir,”_ Jarvis said slowly, as if he himself was not expecting the sudden call either. Tony was racing towards the stairs before Jarvis had had a chance to finish. Taking the steps two at a time he exhaled sharply when he saw the phone in question lying in wait for him atop the plush leather couch in the centre of the foyer. He grit his teeth, reaching down without a second thought.

_If she’s telling me she’s coming back tonight I have to keep her in D.C._

_“Sir…”_

He didn’t hear Jarvis’s call, didn’t pay attention to the sharpness in the AI’s voice. Didn’t consider the cry of warning that it so clearly was. He didn’t even see it coming.

“Pepper?”

 _“Tony?”_ Pepper’s voice filtered through the phone, and Tony had just taken a seat.

_“SIR!”_

The high-pitched hum was what gave it away. Searing through his earlobes, burning his brain as the frequency climbed to levels the human brain could barely process, Tony could only blink, could only watch and let it happen as rigid tension flooded his body, so overpowering, so intense that his first reaction was to jerk away – but found his body didn’t co-operate. Thick, meaty fingers wrapped around his neck from behind. They clenched down with force enough to make him choke, but he couldn’t do anything save breathe. Breathe and blink. His limbs were locked, bound as if by an invisible rope. Cutting into his veins, his blood, his muscles like the rope had grown barbed wires. 

He felt white-hot pain explode across his brain, the white dots shifting and swimming before his eyes like dancing fireworks of agony had exploded in front of him.

 _“Tony, are you there? Hello—”_ The phone was tugged out of his lax grip, and as Tony was carefully lowered back towards the couch, he finally caught glimpse of the weapon that had stripped his body of all mobility.

Sleek. Silver. No larger than a standard-issue USB port for a computer. Emitted a wave frequency unique to the human brain that caused short-term paralysis. It was one of his own designs. It was meant to be used in self-defence.

Now it was used to keep him prisoner.

As the pain throbbed behind his skull, his heart beat loudly in his ears, his blood surged towards his skin and his tongue felt heavy and dry, he realised he should have turned around, looked up when Jarvis yelled at him to get his attention. Yelled to warn him.

His face being forced upwards now he found himself face to face with Obadiah Stane.

“Breathe…” He murmured, amusement thick in his voice as he propped Tony’s head back against the pillows, as comfortably as he could given the unrelenting grip he still maintained around his throat. As if in teasing, he ground down – making sure his fingernails left angry red welts upon Tony’s skin. Tony felt his throat constrict, felt his eyes water with the overwhelming need to choke. He couldn’t. The noise that left his throat was pained, ugly. Sick-sounding.

Below him he thought he could hear something, a low mechanical whir.

“Easy… easy…” The smile returned to Obadiah’s lips, and as he withdrew his hands from Tony’s neck, dark eyes admiring the marks upon tanned flesh he’d left him with, he reached up and begun to pull the paralyser’s accompanying earbuds from his ears.

“You remember this one, right?” He held it up, flashing it in front of Tony’s unresponsive face. “It’s a shame the government didn’t approve it… there’s so many applications for causing short-term paralysis.” When he sighed, Obadiah sounded deeply saddened, wounded even. Stuffing the paralyser and earbuds into his coat pockets he then walked around from the back of the couch, coming directly into Tony’s line of sight. He reached down, rifled through a briefcase he’d set down on the ground by his feet. Tony heard the clanking of metal and a jolt of fear shot through his spine. As soon as Obadiah pulled the device out, he realised his fear was well placed.

It was the perfect diameter to fit around the arc reactor in his chest. In fact, it was the same tool Tony had developed himself to help him change the electromagnet over for his upgraded model. And Obadiah was holding it dangerously closely over his chest. Tony’s mind was racing. He didn’t know how Obadiah had gotten his hands on that model. But then again, he didn’t know how much of his own original private designs the man _had_ found access to. He’d already stolen his suit from him, and his paralyser. And now he was going to take his arc reactor too.

The droning from below grew louder. He thought he could feel vibrations surge through his feet from the bottom floor.

Obadiah centred the metallic prongs around the blue electromagnet pulsing within the core of Tony’s chest. He clamped down. The resulting _hiss_ of the arc reactor unlocking and being slowly wrenched forth from its socket brought with it a sharp, stabbing pain that rocketed Tony’s nerves and buzzed within his very centre. It pulled with it a yelping groan from the very bottom of Tony’s throat, and the white light exploded across his eyes once more. He felt like he was going to vomit. He still couldn’t move.

“Tony… when I ordered the hit on you, I worried that I was killing the golden goose,” Obadiah continued, his voice low, the man feigning a consoling tone though the look in his eyes was anything but calming. The smile on his lips was feral-looking, vicious. Filled with malicious intent. Tony’s heart felt sluggish. His brain even more so. The hum he could hear in his ears was growing louder. He thought he was finally going to die. Obadiah continued to ignore him, his eyes trained on the glowing blue reactor he held in his palm. Awe, delight, pleasure – a variety of emotions played over his leering face. Like Christmas had come early.

“But, you see… it was just… fate that you survived that.” A sudden tug on the copper wires connecting the electromagnet to the arc reactor wall in his chest had Tony huff a sharp drunken groan once more, this one more desperate, more agonising than the last. He could feel the cords slipping, hanging on by a bare thread… one more pull and the reactor would wrench free, leaving him with only fifteen minutes until that shrapnel collided with his heart… sent him off into the next world… he tried to find Obadiah’s eyes, to somehow plead with him, to shake his head ‘no, c’mon Obie!’… it didn’t work. Of course it didn’t.

Another whir from down below. It sounded familiar. Growing louder. He was starting to put the pieces together.

His eyes slowly widened.

His heart thudded weakly in his chest again. This time it wasn’t from fear.

“You had one last golden egg to give.” Obadiah paused, taking a slow breath as he knelt down in front of the younger man, his lips still curved in a smile that reminded Tony of a joker’s grin. It suited him. Suited the type of monster that Tony now knew lived deep inside him. Unable to keep his eyes upwards he let his gaze drop to the far wall, counting the seconds by in his head…

 _One_.

Another whir. Followed by a low thud of what could almost be metal landing on the floor.

 _Two_.

Another whir. Another thud.

_Three._

Two more thuds. Footsteps.

_Four._

A shadow flickered by the stairs leading up from the workplace; something was coming.

_Five._

His view was blocked by Obadiah Stane – his eyes narrowed sharply as he jerked Tony’s head roughly upwards with his free hand, demanding his attention.

“Do you _really_ think that just because you have an idea, it belongs to you?”

If Tony could have the capacity to speak in that moment he would have done so. Out of the corner of his eye, above Obadiah’s shoulder, he caught the first glimpse of the living room lights dancing off of something sleek, metallic, skeletal-looking and black marred with flashes of gold.

Mark XLI. ‘Bones’.

He'd chosen well.  

He blinked sluggishly, barely managing to hold Obadiah’s gaze again when the man forcefully jerked his head back up once more. He wished his tongue wasn’t so heavy – wished that he could spit out that one retaliation on his lips that wanted to strike like a venomous snake. As it was all he could do was hold his stare, match it with as much defiance as he could form in his paralysed face.

_Nope. The idea wasn’t mine in the first place. It was his._

It was then that Obadiah froze, his eyes blinking and slowly raising to the glass window behind the couch. Tony watched as the colour slowly but surely drained from Stane’s face; realisation sparking in his eyes. Behind Stane Tony could hear the Mark XLI take a step forwards, hydraulic legs muffled by the bareback armour it bore.

Stane had barely spun his head around when Jarvis was upon him.

The walls shook with the force of the blow, Stane’s pained yell echoing around the glass walls of the living room as the Mark XLI dashed forwards with speed unparalleled by any other of Tony’s suits; a metal hand clenched around Stane’s throat and lifted him effortlessly into the air, the powerful limb rolling backwards to throw him to the far wall, Stane’s body colliding harshly with the impact and sliding down with a sickening _thud_.

Dust and debris billowed like smoke through the air, and Tony was left powerless to blink through the haze, heart pumping in unsteady bursts through his chest like the bursts of his repulsors. The suit turned, spiked armour a deadly sight to behold as Jarvis took one step… then another… prowling towards Stane’s groaning and bleeding form like a hunter circling its prey. The lights glistened off the golden barbs that wrapped the onyx black body in spine-like protrusions, and Tony thought it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

This… _this_ was all Jarvis. All of it. His design brought to fruition. And it had come to life before his very eyes.

And it wasn’t even half of it.

“Wha—” Whatever Stane had been trying to say was lost; the suit stood tall before him, hand pulled back to strike. It reached down, fisted his collar, pulled him free from the wreckage. Jarvis was running diagnostics, Tony knew. Reading vitals… detecting injuries… and as his gauntleted right hand crushed Stane’s left arm and twisted it upwards behind his back, resulting in a screeching wail of agony and the shattering _crack_ of bone… he was taking full advantage of those vulnerabilities.

 _“Obadiah Stane, I must formally request that you stand down.”_ Jarvis’s voice filtered through the suit, and even his voice appeared to have undergone a drastic change. Gone was the well-spoken, gentle calm that Tony associated him with. Now it had grown to a hiss, a low warning growl, all pleasantries forgotten in the moment that Tony had been put in danger.

Cold chills crept through his spine.

Obadiah’s eyes were watering. He coughed and choked up blood. His arm lay limp by his side at a sharp angle, completely broken from the elbow down. His face was littered with bruises and open wounds.

He was covered in red.

Still, he tried to speak.

“T-Ton…y…”

Armour-encased fingers flew back to his neck, choking off any further attempt Stane made to speak. Jarvis lowered his head close to the man’s face. The suit’s illuminated eyepieces almost appeared to narrow as Jarvis pulled him forwards.

_“Stand. Down.”_

He threw him back to the floor, another piercing yell of pain echoing through the walls as a body slammed unforgivingly to the cold hard ground. But that wasn’t enough. And Tony watched as Jarvis rose a leg, stamped down on Obadiah’s chest, ground him further into the rubble that was littering the floor. He kept going… and going… and _going._

He didn’t stop until Obadiah at last slipped into unconsciousness, buried in blood and dust.

Tony felt the restraints of his paralysis slipping; choking through the flood of air that he tried to gasp back into his lungs, he groaned against the uncomfortable grind of his muscles working to accommodate his feeble attempts to move.

The sound alerted Jarvis, and the suit turned. Tony froze again. The Mark XLI approached quickly, crossing the room in three whole strides. He gazed up into that metallic face, watched and swallowed loosely as the suit leant down on its knees, gauntleted hands immediately flying towards the arc reactor that was haphazardly hanging loosely from its socket in Tony’s chest.

“J-Jarvis…” Tony could barely work the words over his tongue. He sounded slurred, drunken. A cold metal hand rose to his brow, cupped his cheek. The other took a firm grasp of the electromagnet; gently lowered it back into his chest. Locked it with a twist before rising up to grasp Tony’s other cheek as gently as a machine possibly could. Tony felt the welcome rush of power flood back through his chest, through his limbs – inhaled another sharp gulp of air and tried to stop himself from spinning out into darkness from the fatigue and shock that surged through his heart and threatened to make him double-take.

 _“Please try to relax, sir. Your motor functions will resume as normal presently.”_ That gentle voice was back. Tony found he could concentrate on that voice. He gripped an armoured forearm, clutched down as hard as he could to find purchase. He didn’t blink.  

“You… you son of a bitch…” He almost laughed. After a moment he did. He regretted it immediately, his throat feeling swollen, dry. He felt those fingers trace loose circles by his jugular, rising to cup the back of his head. He felt his throat loosen up. He leant into the touch, his eyes closing so as to not give Jarvis the satisfaction of seeing his creator so powerless, so relieved as to shed a tear in front of him. It wasn’t what Tony Stark did.

But he did it anyway.

“I’m… I’m a mess… Jarv, god you saved my life, buddy… have you… have you called—”

 _“I already notified the police of Mr Stane’s actions prior to assembling myself in this suit, sir. They are on their way now,”_ Jarvis explained calmly, and Tony nodded faintly in his hold. If he could just look at the eyes… listen to that quiet voice… just focus on _that_ alone, maybe his head would stop swimming…

_Wait._

His eyes shot open and he winced against the harsh onslaught of light he was met with. He tried to tighten his hold on Jarvis’s arm. He tried to push himself closer.

“Did… you just said you… assembled… does that… does that mean…?” For a moment it was like his paralysis had returned; he’d momentarily forgotten how to breathe again. “J… _did it work?_ ”

Jarvis didn’t answer with words, but regardless Tony could almost feel a smile on Jarvis’s metaphorical lips in that silence that followed. A gauntleted hand removed itself from the back of Tony’s head, raising slowly to touch the helmet that Tony was so intently focused on. He knew his heart rate was accelerating. He knew his fingers were trembling. He kept his hold on Jarvis’s forearm and hoped he wouldn’t pass out before the night was over.

The helmet drew back, rising upwards to show who was inside the suit.

Tony felt his heart finally come to a stop.

“Oh, J…” He whispered, finding it hard to articulate his words around his dry tongue. “That’s… that’s… _beautiful_.”

“Thank you, sir.” And it was so indescribably strange to hear that voice spoken right in front of him, wholesome and organic. Not filtered through layers and layers of electronics and machinery. Pale lips drew upwards, and Tony realised that Jarvis was smiling.

Wholesome.

Organic.

Physical.

_Real._

He lifted his hand from Jarvis’s forearm, his fingers trembling as he touched it to the android’s cheek – this body that he and Jarvis had been working so diligently on for the past week now here, before him… in the flesh… _alive._ Jarvis simply let him, simply watched and smiled – and oh _god_ that smile – as Tony traced his fingertips across that silicon skin, perfectly soft to emulate the feel of human skin, but carried the strength of palladium-infused vibranium. Virtually indestructible. Devastatingly beautiful.

He had sharp features; keen, intelligent. Pale skin with pale red lips. Defined cheekbones, well-shaped nose. Strands of flaxen blond hair brushed over his brow, cropped and spiked and well-maintained. He ran a hand through that hair now, feeling its softness. It was real human hair – he’d had to pay a fortune for the wig just to take it apart and painstakingly attach strand by strand to the android’s head in the fashion that Jarvis wanted, but the result was something breathtakingly satisfying. Uniquely his own.

But his eyes… he looked at them now, taking in the cobalt blue irises, the way the black pupils were slowly rotating in circular directions – his eyes were miniaturised monitors. Constantly shifting, ever recording… he could see them now, the way the pupils contracted and dilated, zoomed in and centred on Tony’s face, keeping him in full view…    

And he was warm. That was the liquidised arc reactor that provided the energy for the circuitry, emulating blood patterns… kept him fully charged with no need to hook him up to the computer again to recharge his batteries. He didn’t even run on batteries. He couldn’t even be called ‘android’, now that Tony thought about it. He’d synthesised a heart, liver, lungs, kidneys, intestines, stomach, skeleton…   

“Can you feel that?” His voice was hoarse. Jarvis blinked – and Tony felt a swell of satisfaction at seeing a reaction so _human_ – and his fine brows creased, furrowed as he leant into Tony’s hand upon his cheek. He nodded. Tony felt his grin split his face in two.

Sensory input and output. He’d synthesised that too.

“We did it, Jarv…” He whispered. “We actually did it. _You_ did it. I’m so proud of you…”

The smile on Jarvis’s lips widened, showing arrays of perfectly straight teeth, and Tony found that he was quickly starting to like that smile. He wondered if he should tell Jarvis to keep that as his default expression from now on.

“You flatter me, sir,” Jarvis intoned, a clear trace of amusement in his voice. “I must admit I wasn’t expecting the test-run to be so successful. I will continue to run diagnostics on this body to determine if any faults lie within, but if I may…”

“Anything,” Tony blinked, not even having to think about it. Jarvis chuckled – the sound almost as mesmerising as finally hearing him _talk_ for once – and he ran a gauntleted hand carefully down Tony’s arm. He held it firmly, making sure Tony was stable in his hold. He was clearly preparing to drag him to his feet, to help him up off the couch.

“I wish to remain in this body for as long as you deem it necessary. It will take quite some time getting used to, but I do believe it is rather comfortable.”

Tony almost laughed again.

“You’re staying like that, Jarv,” he said blankly. “You kicked ass in your own suit and built your own human to do so. You’re staying as-is. That’s an order.”

Jarvis looked pleased, and the subtle ways in which he expertly manipulated his face to emulate human expressions was an art which Tony thought alone was the most priceless piece of art the entire world had ever been blessed with. He ran his free hand over his own face, chuckling faintly into his fingers.

_Jesus Christ…_

When he pulled his hand away, he shook his head.

“Remember what I told you last week, J? When you told me you stood by your desire to stick with this and make your own meatsuit?”

There was a gentle pause, Jarvis furrowing his brows in thought as his eyes centred on Tony’s face again, the hold on his arm a comforting presence as he took his free hand and held it against the fingers Tony kept splayed against his cheek.    

“You told me you could kiss me, sir.” An arch of a brow, and a bemused expression crossed that pale face. Clearly he was wondering what Tony was implying. Wondering, and already knew. Tony barked a dry laugh, groaning as he clapped a hand over his face again. He sighed.

“Yeah… about that…” He reached up. Pulled Jarvis down. Crushed his lips to Jarvis’s mouth before that spark of pure, inspirational irrational thought left him. Stane was unconscious in the corner, half the wall was ruined, the police would be here any minute and he'd just come within an inch of his life of dying while paralysed. He could afford a moment of insanity amongst all this madness. He needed it. Jarvis's lips were soft like the rest of his skin, warm like the rest of him too. Soft. Warm. But somehow hard as steel. He liked it. He liked it a lot.

He felt the hand drop from his arm, wind around his back instead. Found himself gently pulled flush against the grooves of Mark XLI’s armour plates as Jarvis pressed back against Tony’s mouth. Moved his lips. Diagnosed the sensory input, emulated the sensory output. Mimicked the kiss and turned it something hot. Something _meaning_.

When Tony pulled back and groaned, caught his breath, he saw the calm look in Jarvis’s eyes. Saw the smug satisfaction he’d been expecting from the man who’d once been an AI.

“Did that meet your expectations, sir?” The sarcasm was back, too. Good. Tony chuckled, his laughter soon rolling freely from his chest before he reigned it in. He nodded, finally allowing himself to be helped upright from the couch, Jarvis wrapping his arms securely around his waist to steady him when Tony’s legs shook under him.

“Yep. Passed the test. All systems go. Worth it. Every second.”      

The smile was fixed firmly back in place on Jarvis’s slightly reddened lips.

“Likewise, sir.” 

Tony knew that as soon as the police arrived, as soon as Stane was taken away and as soon as he set the workers to repair his house that there would be things that would have to be said, things that would have to be worked out. But for now, as he allowed Jarvis to keep him steady, to help him over to the kitchen to splash some water on his face before he sat down again and waited for the authorities to enter, he found that if he could just focus on this and  _this_ alone... this right here, this magnificent creature that Jarvis had become... 

Well...

'Likewise' would suit him just fine. So he closed his eyes as Jarvis removed his helmet, settled it neatly on the seat beside him, and pulled his creator into his arms to provide the support he was finally personally able to give. He hadn't told Tony that that was his goal for creating this body in the first place.

But somehow he knew that it didn't matter.

Jarvis ensured he was as gentle as possible as he rested his chin lightly atop the man's head, withdrawing his gauntlets so as to run his fingers through his hair, map over the ridge of his spine and hold him closer, feeling warmth, solidity, softness for the first time...

 _"Own it. Feel it out. Live a little."_ That had been what Tony had said to him, when they'd been gazing at this body that Jarvis now inhabited.

And starting with protecting Tony Stark, just like this, Jarvis intended to do all three.  


End file.
